“My husband is a Chartered Accountant in practice. I am a housewife and would like to take up some home-based, Internet-based project,” said Vadana, a B.Com., graduate from Bangalore.

“Many Chartered Accountants advise their clients to subscribe to Life Insurance Policies to avail tax benefits. They would see that these clients would take policies through their relatives, who are Insurance agents. Both the clients and relatives are benefitted. You can offer autoresponder service to your husband’s business clients and create a profitable self-employment project,” I told her.

“What is an autoresponder service?” she asked. “Sending personalized emails automatically at predetermined intervals to people that want the messages is known as autoresponder service. In other words, you offer a ‘follow up service’ to your clients,” I said.

Vadana asked, “Is following up with offline prospects and website visitors really important?”

I replied, “This morning I visited an autoresponder service provider website. I will tell you what I read there. Reputed researchers say that most website visitors don't order on the first visit. What they say is applicable to offline visitors also. They don't know enough about you or your product to order on the first visit. Some of them may be busy with other projects or may not have the money to purchase immediately. Yet some would still be evaluating other products or services and haven't made a decision. Besides to have constant contact with customers and to get responses from them is important in building excellent credibility and long lasting trust. Every business person knows the value of such trust. If we don't ask for the opt-in email addresses of our website visitors when they visit and follow up with them or send a newsletter to them, we are losing a significant volume of sales. Experts have shown that it often takes 7 or more marketing exposures before prospective customers purchase.”

“How does this follow up solution work?” Vadana wanted to know.

I said, “Prospects and visitors request information from business persons, who are your clients, through your web site or in person. As most people have email addresses, the information will be automatically delivered to them by you within seconds. When you send emails to the contact details such as the name and e-mail address of each prospect is automatically added to your database. Personalized follow up letters are automatically sent to each of the prospects and the customers at regular, predetermined intervals, building trust and rapport between them and your client. Such efficient follow up process converts prospects into customers and make customers to buy more without intervention from you or your clients.”

Vadana nodded her head, “It builds customer loyalty, increases conversion ratios, saves time and reduces stress.” I said, “And it helps you and your clients make more money,”

“Can you please tell me where I can get more information on autoresponder services?” Vadana asked me.

I replied, “You can visit the websites of online autoresponder service providers and read their help pages. This will give you an idea about what you will do. These online services provide infrastructure to their clients and but don’t provide the marketing service. But your client will love your service because you are going to manage all aspects of the process.”

She asked, “Do I have to create a website to provide autoresponder service?” I said, “Providing this service through a website would make sense only if you have some knowledge in programming or if you hire a programmer. There are email marketing software tools such as Gammadyne mailer that will work well on desktop computers. It is better to use such desktop tools. Nowadays spam - unsolicited commercial mails - has become a big problem. There are many regulations on spam around the world. If you are not careful and violate these rules, you will become a spammer and have to face the consequences.”

After six months I received this email from Vadana: “My husband helped me in getting 5 clients within a month from the day I started my business. In the beginning I made many mistakes. Overtime, I have become an expert in autoresponder service and earned Rs.5,000 a month. Now I have 20 clients and earn a net profit of Rs.15,000 a month. I charge just Rs.750 a month for my services and all my clients are pleased beyond measure with the results. As all aspects of my business is automated, I am planning to hire two women and expand my business in the near future. This project has huge potential in India…”

And I hope many of the readers will make use of this simple but effective self-employment idea.